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Woody Allen once said, "Eighty percent of success is showing up." As a business person I absolutely agree, and I am certain that global business leaders would agree in regards to their international business efforts. As a localization professional however, I quickly attribute the remaining “20% of success” to “being prepared” with quality products and communications that reflect the unique wants and needs of local target markets in terms of culture, language and user requirements.
Domestic organizations entering international markets to sustain aggressive growth objectives continue to make the age-old mistake of ignoring the differences of individual locales by standardizing marketing communications for cost-efficiency reasons. Although markets may share fundamental human needs which may justify standardizing a product, marketing successfully to these wants and needs is never universal. Marketing professionals must localize plans and strategies for communicating with these international audiences who have different values, attitudes and buying behaviors, and not presume that standardized communications would be as effective in a multicultural environment.
Culture in Marketing
Understanding the conventions of culture as well as the individual cultural differences and similarities of target locales empowers marketing professionals to realize that one universal message—whether verbal or visual, can never reach a global audience. One global culture comprised of people with identical values does not exist—not even within the confines of our own country as the recent elections illustrate. Differences in learning and thinking patterns influence the way people process information, as demonstrated in their innate responses to marketing communications. Audiences differ in the way they perceive and value concepts of time, space, money, relationships, power, risk, and even the protocols of gender roles. It is important to note that when attempting to customize communications with cultural differences in mind, it is just as important to recognize the cultural similarities. As much as localization vendors like to overemphasize "extreme customization", cultural similarities do exist, and are deeply imbedded in the core values of your products and service offerings.
False assumptions about culture are very common—and frequently built into products and marketing strategies—as seen in the countless blunders companies have made in “foreign” markets. Culture is an omnipresent evolution of social behaviors that continually transforms itself and is not limited to just countries, but rather to subgroups within countries. This is a different concept than tradition, which does not change but may have an influence on societal behaviors. Often times, false assumptions are created because too much emphasis is placed on tradition rather than culture, which results in a negative connotation for the marketing attempt. For instance, a savvy, hi-tech German company would instantly recognize a man in lederhosen (a traditional German costume) but may think of it negatively since it would not support their modern and forward-thinking cultural identity. So it’s important not to just to understand the culture of the country, but of the subgroup within the country you are appealing to.
Incorporating Localization into Marketing Planning and Development
Marketing professionals must remember that consumers prefer products and communications that have local branding elements that identify with their culture. People buy what the product or service can do for them, not what the product and its features are to the marketing people.
Historically, localization has been an afterthought in traditional product development cycles. Today, as standards and generally accepted best practices spread, experienced international companies, product developers, and localization managers are successfully addressing localization as a fundamental element in product planning and development processes. As marketing professionals are involved in most stages of a global product's development cycle, they must assume the same responsibility for addressing issues of localization. As Richard Ishida states in his article, It’s All About Customer Focus, international competition makes it too easy for your audience to turn to another source that accommodates their unique needs. Today, companies must be more aware of their changing markets than ever. Successful decision makers must actively remain sensitive to cultural factors from a product's early stages and immediately address any ethnocentric attributes that will compromise localizability.
Classification of Culture
The ability to distinguish among different communication styles is the first step to understanding why a message cannot be equally effective in all cultures. For some, pictures contain more information than words, and for others, the only way to convey meaning is verbal. Classifying cultures is a practice that objectively identifies differences and similarities before developing localizable marketing communications. Dr. Edward Hall, a respected anthropologist that established various intercultural behavioral schools-of-thought, divides cultures into high-context and low-context cultures. Communication in a high-context culture depends heavily on the context, or the nonverbal aspects of communications. Low-context cultures tend to depend more on explicit, verbally expressed forms of communication. The United States is a low-context culture that generally relies heavily on information communicated explicitly by words. Asian and Hispanic cultures, by contrast, resemble high-context audiences that generally accept communications that are deeper and more complex than spoken or written messages.
The difference between high and low-context cultures helps us understand why, for example, Japanese and American advertising styles are so different. Generally, Japanese audiences prefer indirect verbal communication and symbolism over the direct "in your face" communication approaches used by Americans. American advertising traditionally relies on words to explain the product and its features and how the product differs from the competition. In contrast, advertising communications used in high-context countries such as Japan rely on nuances and overall differences in the tone, music, scenery, and other nonverbal cues to differentiate the product.
Metaphors: Barometer of Culture
Expressions of culture are particularly recognizable in the use of metaphors. The use of metaphors is a common cause of misunderstandings and ineffective communications in marketing. Americans are guilty of using sports metaphors without understanding that many of their sports are not actively played or seen by large groups in other countries. For example, when my clients ask me for a "ballpark estimate" on a specific localization project, they are actually demonstrating their American cultural influences as they relate to American baseball. It is best to avoid playing with words and using colloquialisms, and to keep the message simple, short and direct.
Language Barriers in Marketing Communications
The language a person speaks is part of the culture in which they were raised. Therefore, the language used in all marketing communications, including advertising, public relations, and general communications, should reflect the unique cultural expressions and values of the target locale. This is why translating marketing messages for an international campaign often leads to ineffective copy, as words expressing people's values cannot be easily translated. Therefore, simple word-for-word conversions are not sufficient. Linguistic subtleties make copy difficult to translate without extensive creative writing and cultural analysis. In fact, some words are so culturally significant that they cannot be translated. A branded slogan that has conquered domestic markets, rarely transliterates to another language with the same power and precision.
To ensure total quality and effectiveness of marketing communications, it is critical that translations are completed not only by translation experts in each language but rather, translation experts who understand how to write marketing/ad copy. It’s common for companies to make the mistake of using in-house native-speaking technical writers to conduct the translations of marketing related communications, however this is an extremely ineffective way of localizing marketing communications. Marketing copy intended for different locales should always be composed by a copywriter from the target market. Writing in a particular language requires the writer to think in terms of that language and the related culture.
Conclusion
The significance of the different roles of communication across cultures for international marketing professionals is that they cannot use one standard for measuring effectiveness worldwide. Therefore, in their efforts to chase the classic global successes of the world's "super brands," marketing professionals must remember that consumers prefer products and communications that have local branding elements that identify with their culture. People buy what the product or service can do for them, not what the product and its features are to the marketing people. Remember, people want different things from the same product. Speaking in the language of marketing's famous four P's: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion, a marketing professional always makes adjustments in at least one of these four strategic elements—frequently "promotion" (language) when attempting to address cultural differences.
